The Suiattle Road: Repair and reopen!

Crisp, glorious early autumn days used to draw hundreds of hikers, campers and picnickers to the Suiattle River Road, east of Darrington in Snohomish County, the chief western access to Washington’s half-million-acre Glacier Peak Wilderness Area.

But much of the road has remained closed for nearly a decade since hit by washouts in a 2003 late fall storm that extensively damaged the recreation infrastructure of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

God’s great out-of-doors is less accessible for it.

The closure of the road blocked access to seven major trailheads, two forest campgrounds, 27 miles of the protected Suiattle River and 120 miles of trails — ranging from the spectacular Green Mountain day hike to backpack adventures along the Pacific Crest Trail.

Amazingly, two venerable conservation groups — the North Cascades Conservation Council and Pilchuck Audubon Society — used a lawsuit a couple years back to block reconstruction of the road.

The Herald of Everett wisely editorialized last week:

“Since the era of David Brower’s leadership of the Sierra Club in the 1950’s, conservationists have been pigeonholed as elitists, disconnected from the interests of the hoi polloi. The stereotype is just that, a broadside sadly given renewed vigor whenever greenie pressure groups lobby against access.”

The repair-blocking litigation came just as the Conservation Council and other groups were ginning up a drive to expand the boundaries of the North Cascades National Park, created in the same 1968 legislation that designated the Glacier Peak Wilderness.

How can you hope to build support for expanding a national park when keep-everybody-out-but-us greens are trying to block access to a nearby protected area they previously helped create?

What the Herald calls a “sensible center to the Northwest environmental movement” is pushing to fully reopen the Suiattle Road. The road repair advocates include the Wilderness Society, Backcountry Horsemen of Washington and Washington Wild.

The U.S. Forest Service is trying to jump through all the hoops of the National Environmental Policy Act, doing a full environmental assessment of the proposed repair. It is taking comments on the future of the Suiattle Road.

This coming Monday, Sept. 10, is the deadline.

Comments can be addressed to the Federal Highway Administration, 610 E. 5th Street, Vancouver, Wash. 98661-3893. Or e-mail at wfl.suiattleriverroad@dot.gov